Page 423 - Le Operazioni Interforze e Multinazionali nella Storia Militare - ACTA Tomo I

423
ActA
aim was to bring the Luftwaffe into the air to fight and, subsequently, destroyed. Al-
though Luftwaffe resources in the West were extremely limited, most of their aircraft
were heavily engaged on the Eastern Front, the RAF’s plan of action meant that the
enemy could chose when, or if, to fight. 10
In April 1942 planning began for Operation RUTTER, an attack on Dieppe that was
to have taken place during the first week of July. The original plan called for a landing
force to seize and hold Dieppe for a pre-determined period of time and then withdraw
in good order. Royal Air Force support, although still predominantly fighter oriented,
included the provision of heavy bombers to attack designated targets the evening prior to
the invasion, smoke-laying aircraft to blind the defenders, direct attack on gun positions
and hard points, reconnaissance of inland approaches to the port and airborne landings
11
to seize flanking gun batteries.
Almost from the beginning the use of heavy bombers was a contentious point. Com-
bined operations doctrine called for the use of heavy bombers only if they were readily
available, there were clear targets and their use did not remove the element of surprise.
As well, there was reluctance on the part of Prime Minister Churchill to rescind earlier
12
directives that limited bombing which could result in French civilian casualties. When
this was combined with the need to hit targets around near the sea shore without causing
extensive damage to the town, a level of precision beyond what the bombers were capa-
ble of in 1942, their use was removed from the plan. As it turned out, less than stellar
rehearsals and bad weather led to the cancellation of RUTTER. 13
Primarily for political and strategic reasons already mentioned, the attack on Dieppe
was resurrected in July as Operation JUBILEE. The plan was virtually unchanged ex-
cept for the substitution of sea-borne commandos in place of airborne forces and the ad-
dition of a diversionary attack by United States Army Air Corps bombers on the German
airfield at St. Abbeville-Drucat. 14
Overall command of the Air Forces engaged at Dieppe would be Air Marshal Tafford
Leigh-Mallory, the Officer Commanding 11 Group, part of Fighter Command. Under
his command he would have 50 squadrons of day fighters and six squadrons for close
support, two squadrons of day bombers, two squadrons of Hurricane fighter-bombers,
four Army Cooperation squadrons for tactical reconnaissance and three squadrons to lay
smoke. He would exercise command from the bunker at Royal Air Force Station Ux-
bridge, while his eyes and ears forward would be Air Commodore Adrian Trever Cole
onboard His Majesty’s Ship (HMS) CALPE, a Royal Navy destroyer that also housed
the Major-General Roberts who commanded the land force and Captain J. Hughes Hal-

10 Williamson Murray, Strategy for Defea : The Luftwaffe 1933-1945 (Montgomery, Alabama : Air University
Press, 1983). Approximately 180 German aircraft were within range of Dieppe at the time of the raid.
11 Canada, Department of National Defence, Directorate of History and Heritage (hereafter DHH), Report No.
100, Historical Officer Canadian Military Headquarters, “Operation ‘JUBILEE’: The Raid on Dieppe, 19
Aug 42. Part I: The Preliminaries of the Operation”, 8.
12 Ibid., 9.
13 Stacey, 338-340.
14 Ibid., 340-348.